


Sugar pills all night

by Qpenguin98



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bullying, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Self-Hatred, Slurs, a little bit, just covering my bases, kind of, listen i just love will so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 19:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: Indianapolis is a lonely city, Will decides after the first week they’ve been there.





	Sugar pills all night

Indianapolis is a lonely city, Will decides after the first week they’ve been there. No one speaks to one another, there’s no real neighborhood communities, no one seems to know anyone here. There’s barely a woods, and what woods there are can barely be called a forest. There’s a lonely little tree in their backyard, and Will thinks that’s the closest he’ll get to a safe haven in the trees.

El keeps looking around in awe at things, wincing back at sounds and forgetting herself when she inevitably reaches out to touch all the chrome surrounding them. It’s weird, having her so close by. He’s had almost a year to get to know her, and now she’s kind of been adopted by mom and she’s living with them for the foreseeable future, which he doesn’t have a problem with, she’s just… it’s different.

Jonathan’s barely home, working odd hours right alongside mom to try and keep themselves upright in this brand new city. Will goes to the nearest high school, a ten minute walk away and an even quicker bike ride, and he’s the odd one out because they’ve come in October, not even the beginning of the school year, so he’s a new kid and a freshman and he has no friends. He’s done his best to keep to himself and it’s worked out for him so far, though it’s only been a week. He won’t get his hopes up.

Eleven’s doing supplemental learning still, planning on joining with Will in the high school either next semester or the beginning of next year. Depends on how she does on the test, really, and while he’s sure she’ll be a magnet for bad attention, he’d love to have someone he knows with him.

He doesn’t let himself join any of their science clubs, not yet at least, he has to test the waters with science classes first. And so far, his teacher does not look like she wants it to be her life’s work to teach him and his classmates biology. It’s a little rough, not looking forward to one of his favorite subjects, but it’s fine.

Home feels empty. El’s there, El’s always there, unless she’s out with mom, but she’s there, staring at things and gritting her teeth to try and make them move. It doesn’t work. Things rattle sometimes but she seems to hit some kind of wall and they go still. Her huffs of frustration keep him from giving any advice. It’s not like he knows what the hell he’s talking about anyway.

He has no idea how to deal with this new dynamic they have to create. Pseudo siblings that never talk to each other because they have no clue what to say. He knows El’s been trying to choose her words more carefully, to learn what they really mean before she says them, and Will’s never been great around girls, let alone ones with trauma blocked super powers, and he thinks they’re doing okay with how awkward it always is.

He only has to last another month and a half before Mike shows up and he finally has someone to talk to, but time is moving the slowest it ever has and he can’t stand being stuck in this city.

It’s so different from how it used to be.

\---

He hasn’t woken up screaming since the second month after the Upside Down, and he thanks whatever it is that prevents him from doing that now more than ever. The cold sweats are there, the awful stomach dropping that he gets when the air catches in his throat, the slapping on of his lamp for just a few minutes so he can catch his bearings and stare anxiously into the remaining shadows. He doesn’t leave it on long enough for his mom to notice the light from under the door, can’t have her thinking something’s wrong after all. He’s not sure things will ever be right, but that’s for him to deal with, not his family.

It snows for the first time on the twentieth of October, two weeks after they move, and he decides early in the morning that he’s staying out after school to feel it. Mom will be at work, and so will Jonathan. It’s not like El will tell on him if he’s an hour later than usual. He can just say he stayed for club.

That’s the one thing about this new big city. There’s no one to watch and tell on him if he does something he probably shouldn’t. His mom stresses about him too much, and now there’s no one to add to those stresses.

Time ticks down and he stares out the window at the light dusting of snow that coats everything. It’s not too much for biking, so he’ll be fine.

School lets out and he stands there at his bike for a moment, ungloved hands gripping the handles. The snowflakes flutter around him, and he hops on and rides. It’s just the neighborhood, just twisting around the houses he has no clue of who lives in. The snow sucks its way into his mouth, touches the back of his throat before melting, and he wills himself to stare at how bright everything is.

It’s not good, he knows that. He shouldn’t make himself feel the way he’s feeling just for something to do, but he’s tired of sitting in the house, and he’s tired of feeling sorry for himself. If he feels just plain bad about everything, then he doesn’t have to feel bad about himself.

Will’s head is spinning and the sun is going down pretty fast behind the clouds and the wind sends a shiver down the back of his neck and he fumbles, almost falling off his bike in his haste to get back to their house. He stuffs his bike in the garage, locking the door behind him and letting out a shaky exhale.

“You’re late,” Eleven says from the couch, legs drawn up as she reads. He stares at the cover, _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_. He remembers reading that in sixth grade, watching the movie in the theaters after, staring in awe at the way Mrs. Frisby turned Brisby saved her family. He thinks of the lab rats, the ones tested on, gaining powers beyond those of a rat, and a shaky laugh escapes his mouth without his consent.

“Are you okay?” She asks, putting her bookmark in, not comfortable dogearing pages yet. The book is placed on the couch, ready to come back to, and he wonders when she’ll find the irony of her reading that particular book for her studies. Did mom pick it? Did El?

“Went for a ride in the snow,” he says, body feeling ten steps behind him. “Don’t tell mom.”

“Friends don’t lie,” she says with a furrowed brow.

“Yeah, well, just don’t mention it to her. She’d worry too much and I’m fine.”

She looks at him, deep and considering, and he can’t move away from it. She settles back onto the couch. “You are not fine,” she says before picking up where she left off, rubbing the bookmark between her fingers.

He stands there, staring at her for a moment, and he laughs again, toeing his shoes off and shucking his jacket. He needs heat, and this place doesn’t have a fire place. If he takes a scalding shower it should do the trick, but only if he makes it fast. Their water bill’s high enough with four people living together, he doesn’t need to hike it up because he’s feeling _cold_.

Twelve minutes later finds him yelling into his palms while scalding water pounds on his back. Thirty seconds after that his body feels like his own again and he turns the water off, squeezing water out of his hair. He dresses in soft pants and an old t-shirt. He won’t be leaving the house anytime soon, it doesn’t matter what he looks like right now.

He curls up in a chair with his sketchpad and tries to draw something decent while El reads on slowly. She holds the books in her hands at one point and stares at a corner of a page, doing her best to flip it with her brain, but no dice. She sighs and goes back to reading, looking up occasionally to check the state of the weather.

“Is it the snow?” she asks about an hour later, and he almost jumps, blinking a few times to process her question.

“Is what the snow?” he has to ask eventually, because he has absolutely no idea what she means.

“The dust in the Upside Down. Kind of like snow.”

He twists his lips. She usually doesn’t ask about it. Only mom and Jonathan do that, and less blatantly.

But he is a little morbidly curious, so he’ll participate.

“Do you ever want to feel bad?” He asks, not looking up from his drawings. His pencil still moves, though it isn’t making anything great.

“Why?”

“You want to feel bad in a different way than you already are. Because that’s what it’s like with the snow. It’s bad but I want it to be like that so it’s okay.”

He can feel her looking at him with her too direct stare and refuses to meet her gaze.

“No,” she says eventually. “I don’t ever want it to be bad.”

“But if it’s a way you can control isn’t that better?” He does look at her then. Because it has to be better, and now he’s doubting himself. If he controls what he knows is bad and when he can make himself feel whatever he wants, then it has to be better than letting himself slip out of control and feeling bad about things he doesn’t have any say over.

“Maybe? I don’t know.” She tilts her head and squints her eyes. “You don’t like it here.”

“Do you?” he scoffs at her. “I know you miss Mike. And Max. And even Nancy. I know you liked Hawkins better than here.”

“Everything is big, but I can still talk with all of them. And you can too. You just don’t.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, trying to change the subject. “Mike’ll be here in like a month.”

“Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah, Thanksgiving.”

“You should tell your mom about the snow.” He glares at her and she sits there with her regular look of indifference towards him. He gets it. She dealt with all of that shit every day and he was in the Upside Down for like a week and then had his body taken from him by the Mind Flayer, what a stupid name, while she had her body and mind used for scientist’s gain whenever they chose fit. He didn’t have it as bad as her, and he’s aware of it, but that doesn’t make it any less sucky.

“You should mind your own business,” he says instead of any of that, snapping his sketchbook shut and pushing off the couch, making his way to the bedroom.

It’s going to be a long night if mom or Jonathan don’t get home soon.

\---

Time blurs together until Thanksgiving. He goes to school, rides his bike home, drifts, goes back to school, rides his bike back home, drifts some more. Eleven finally finishes _The Rats of NIMH _and Will waits for her to realize the similarities they all have with that book but she never does. He won’t bring it up. Mom works, Jonathan works, but a little less than mom so that there’s someone there with Will and El if they need help with schoolwork or other things. They eat a lot of reheated leftovers from nights when someone is home to cook, and it feels a bit more like normal.

And then Thanksgiving is there. Jonathan, Will, and Eleven pick Mike up from the Greyhound station and Will sits in the front seat so Mike and El can get all mushy on each other after having been apart for almost two months. They make a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor, because Mike is staying in his room and they don’t have an extra mattress. Eleven and Will listen intently as Mike recounts everything that’s happened in Hawkins in the last month and a half that they’ve been gone, about Dustin and Lucas and Max, how the high school has been, what businesses have reopened since the mall shut down.

Mom comes home and pulls Mike into a pretty big hug, exclaiming about how good it is to see him again, how are his parents, how’s Hawkins in general. Will helps her make dinner while Mike and El spend some time “Catching Up” in her room before they eat.

Thanksgiving’s tomorrow so his mom won’t have to work, getting to spend time with the family, and Will’s glad about it. He’s seen her less since they moved, and not just because he’s in high school. She works too much, and all of them know it.

Everything’s fine until they go to bed, and even then it’s not really bad. The lights are out and Will and Mike are whispering to each other so they don’t wake anyone up, and then Mike asks the question he’s been dreading.

“Do you like it here?” He asks him, leaning on his arm as he looks up from the floor. His eyes are dark without the lamp on and Will feels his stomach sink a little bit.

“I mean, it’s not _horrible_,” he tries to say, but it comes out a lot less jokey than he intended.

“Oh you hate it,” Mike says. “El said you weren’t super into it but I didn’t think you’d hate it.”

“I don’t,” he says, and he’s not exactly lying. “I don’t hate it, I just don’t like it.”

“Have you made any friends?”

He doesn’t answer that, which is really answer enough.

“Will,” Mike groans. “We’re three hours away. We can’t just be your only friends that you see a couple times a year.”

“Why not? It’s easier than trying.”

“What do you mean?” And he sounds genuinely confused, like it isn’t obvious.

“You’re all used to this,” he says, waving a hand around his head. “No one here has any idea what happened, and it’s not like I can really tell them. If I— if I wake up tonight and turn on the light because the dark freaks me out you won’t get weirded out or try to coddle me or some bullshit. I get that enough from mom and Jonathan, I don’t need it from some strangers at school.”

Mike’s quiet for a minute, staring at him with too dark eyes and Will gives up, flops back onto the bed so he can’t see him staring anymore.

“Then don’t sleep over,” he says eventually. “Just try being friends at school and the daytime first. One person, Will. Just make one friend. Join one club. You’re lonely here and I know it has to suck.”

It does, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say anything, and eventually Mike sighs and lays down.

“Good night,” he says, muffled by the blankets.

“Good night,” Will whispers back, staring straight ahead at the ceiling.

He does in fact wake up in the middle of the night, sometime around three, breathing out harshly into the body of his pillow before sitting up, trying to ground himself without the light, but it doesn’t quite work. He reluctantly turns the lamp on and stares down at Mike, watches his body rise and fall with his breathing. Eventually he stirs, squinting his face up before he opens his eyes a crack.

“You okay?” He asks, voice fuzzy with sleep.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Will tells him. “I’ll turn it off in a second.”

“Okay,” Mike says as he throws and arm over his eyes and presumably goes back to sleep. Will stares at him breathing for a little while longer, reminds himself where he is and that everything’s alright, and then he turns the light back out.

He doesn’t get much more sleep.

Thanksgiving day starts at around eleven, and they all pitch in. Mom puts Will on potato duty, Eleven on cranberry sauce, Mike on rolls, Jonathan on green bean casserole, and she takes care of the turkey and pie.

Will and El have to take to the table for the majority of their jobs, peeling and chopping potatoes, cutting up cranberries, filling their respective pots with them. It’s a good time. His mom turns on the radio and they all kind of sing badly along with what’s playing.

Dinner’s ready to eat at around four and they all pile around their too small kitchen table to eat. It’s fun, it feels light and happy and Will’s having the best time he’s had in months. He doesn’t have to worry about anything and Mike’s still going to be there for Friday before he goes back to Hawkins on Saturday, so they get one more whole day to hang out and him not having to stress about school or his mom or Eleven pushing him too far. It’s good. It’s great.

They play board games all together for a while before going to do their own thing in Will’s room, hanging out just the three of them, comparing what comic books they’ve found in Indianapolis versus Hawkins and what heroes are better and who could take down who.

He doesn’t wake up that night, and he wonders if it’s because he’s just so happy about everything.

On Friday the three of them sneak into a movie theater to see _Nightmare on Elm Street 2_ because it’s absolutely rated R and since the mall’s collapse they don’t have excellent movie selections back home. It’s gory and looks super fake and Will has an excellent time.

Saturday comes too soon, and it’s a really cold day when it does come. They all wait at the Greyhound station and Eleven and Mike give each other a really big hug and a way too sloppy kiss before Will hugs Mike goodbye.

“Remember what I said,” Mike says before he goes. “One single friend. We’re gonna see each other in a month and I want to hear about it.”

Will gives him a nod but doesn’t say yes, and the pit is back in his stomach.

He spends the rest of break eating leftover turkey sandwiches and trying not to think about going back to school.

\---

They’ve been reading _Romeo and Juliet_ in English class, the teacher assigning roles to the class if they don’t volunteer to read the parts they want. Will lucks out in not having to read for most of the time, but one day the kid who reads for Benvolio is gone and his teacher scans the room before landing on him, the quiet kid who absolutely never raises his hand and hasn’t read anything aloud once in class. He shakes his head at her and she smiles.

“Will, why don’t you read for Benvolio today?”

“Uh,” he says, trying to stall for time, but she takes that as his yes.

“Great! Thanks. Should just be for today, but if you like it you can pick back up next class.”

He reads his lines in a shaky voice, but doesn’t stumble too badly. He’s probably lacking the emotion for it, but no one laughs at him.

“This field bed is too cold for me to sleep,” Mercutio’s reader, Robert, says, turning to face him as he speaks. Robert smiles at him and, to Will’s shock and horror, he smiles back. “Come, shall we go?”

Will’s a little starstruck and forgets that it’s his line next, and after a moment of silence he realizes the entire class is waiting for him to continue and he ducks his head back into their book. “Go then, for tis in vain, to seek him here that means not to be found.”

And then they go into the balcony scene, a rose by any other name, just as sweet blah blah blah, but Will can’t stop thinking about it, about getting smiled at by arguably the most charismatic kid in their class, and his stomach does a happy little flip.

Oh, he thinks. Oh no.

His good mood leaves him, soured by the realization that the stupid, stupid feelings he had as a kid are still there and just as strong, and he sits back in his chair, silent for the rest of class. This was supposed to be something that went away, even though deep down he knew it never would. He’s fourteen, and if they’re not gone now they never will be.

Robert stops him before he can leave the class and introduces himself as “Robert, but you can call me Rob.”

“Will,” he says, holding the straps of his backpack. “You can call me Will.”

Rob snorts and smiles again and Will feels like his stomach’s dropped out of him but in a good way. He gives a small smile back. “You weren’t too bad at reading lines back there. You should try out for a play.”

Will laughs. “I don’t really think I’d be any good. I’m more a science person than a theater one.”

“Oh? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you after school. We have a science club, you know. It’s pretty good.”

“Just haven’t gotten into it yet,” he says, a little baffled at the idea of this guy being in two clubs. “We had an AV Club back at my old school, but nothing really directly science.”

“Where are you from again? I feel like she told us on your first day but I completely forgot.”

“Hawkins. It’s up north a bit.”

“Sounds familiar,” Rob says, but he doesn’t say anything about watching their conspiracy show episode. “Either way, you did a good job. You should stop by the science club sometime. I’d like to see you there. I don’t think we have any other classes together.”

“I think you’re right,” he says, and wow he’s really gone out of his way to introduce himself and invite him to clubs. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough for me! See you next class?”

“See you next class,” he confirms, and then Rob takes his leave, grinning at him as he goes.

Will’s only thought is that he’s entirely fucked.

\---

Christmas break comes much faster than he expected it to, and then he’s trying to think of gifts for everyone even though he knows he’ll probably just draw his mom something and if push comes to shove draw everyone something.

Him and Eleven and Jonathan are going up to Hawkins after Christmas, which means they’ll be there for New Years and the New Year’s fireworks, which he knows El’s excited for. They’re staying with Mike’s family, everyone sleeping over in his basement, and it’ll be the first time Will’s seen most of his friends in almost three months.

Jonathan drives them up and the radio is the left over Christmas music from the last month of it playing constantly. They make it up in a little less than three hours, everyone returning home to their big cities after the holidays. They pull into the Wheeler’s driveway and get out of the car and the front door bursts open.

The four of them inside yell and hold out their arms and Will hold his arms up and yells in response. El looks between the two groups before holding out her arms and yelling too. Will hears Dustin scream “Yeah!” before he runs outside, sock feet and no coat in the cold winter air. The others follow him and Will and El are swept up in a flurry of hugs and screaming and laughing. Nancy comes out to greet Jonathan, pulling him into a tight hug, and the world feels right for a change.

When everyone gets too cold they pile into the Wheeler’s basement, taking up absolutely all the sitting room. Mike is caught between catching up with El and Max and catching up with Will and Dustin and Lucas, and Will doesn’t really blame him. The energy is so high in this room and it’s a little hard to stay tied to one conversation.

“Have you made any cool big city friends yet?” Dustin asks him.

“Like, half of one?”

Mike enters himself into the conversation full invested. “Yeah?”

“This kid name Rob in my English class went out of his way to try and make us friends, so I guess he counts.”

“Cool,” Mike says, smiling. “What’s he like?”

“He does theater.”

“Oh no,” Dustin says. “He’s gonna rope you into it isn’t he.”

“Don’t become a drama kid, Will,” Lucas says very seriously. “Just don’t do it.”

“I really don’t plan on it,” he says, raising his hands. “Besides, he’s also in the science club.”

“Oh well then he evens out into a regular guy,” Max says from her spot on the couch next to El. “You’re safe to be friends with him.”

“I feel like that makes him a bigger nerd than a normal guy,” Will says.

“I mean yeah, obviously,” Lucas says, “But since he’s in two clubs he won’t try so hard to get you into drama, so he’ll be a normal friend and not a theater friend.”

Will thinks they’re overreacting about the theater stuff, but he loves being able to talk to them all in person so he won’t say anything.

It’s an excellent second Christmas, and he’s so glad to be back in Hawkins, but it still feels wrong. Like he doesn’t live here anymore, because he doesn’t. It’s not his home, but Indianapolis isn’t either. He doesn’t really belong anywhere, and it sucks.

When everyone’s busy trying to figure out what they’re doing and who’s going off with who on day, he takes the time to sneak off into the woods by himself. He just wants to know that he remembers the woods, the paths they’ve taken a million times. He finds himself at the empty and half torn down Castle Byers, staring at the remains of his safe haven. There’s nothing inside anymore, all of it packed up and either donated or taken with him to the city.

He crawls into the half collapsed structure and sits on the chilled leaves inside. It’s not snowing, but it will be soon, and he’d like to get this done before it gets buried in snow again.

It’s quiet, which is nice. It’s hardly ever quiet at their new house, always noises of the city. He closes his eyes and lets himself breathe in the cold clean air and imagine he still belongs here.

Eleven comes and finds him, knocking on the frame of the fort. Will opens his eyes reluctantly and waves her inside.

“You disappeared. They got worried,” she says, crouching down and pulling her knees up.

“I’m fine,” he says quietly.

“You don’t feel right,” she tells him. “I can tell.”

“Yeah, I can tell too.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

And maybe he does, because she’s the only one who could possibly understand. Mike wouldn’t get it, and neither would the rest of them. Maybe Max, but he doesn’t think they’re that close.

“It feels wrong, being back. Like I don’t belong anymore.”

She’s quiet, watching him. He doesn’t feel uncomfortable, but he thinks if this conversation starts to last too long he will.

“Indianapolis doesn’t feel like home, but Hawkins doesn’t either. I don’t belong anywhere, but I’m stuck in the city and I can’t come back here. And I can’t _talk _to anyone because they want me to be happy and I’m not and it sucks. And no one in the city can know what happened, any of it, and you still don’t have your powers back yet and I’m still fucked up about everything and the guy who’s kind of my friend in class is—”

He cuts himself off, because while El might be able to keep a secret, she’s really into not lying and might ask what something means and he can’t. He just can’t.

“He a lot,” he finishes lamely.

She cocks her head at him. “How so?”

“Just is,” he says quickly. “I can’t say, please don’t ask.”

She looks at him carefully before nodding. “The other stuff. I… get it. I think. Indianapolis isn’t home, but Hawkins was never my home either. Only with… with… only for a little while. It’s okay to feel out of place.”

“I’ve been feeling out of place since the day I was born,” he laments quietly.

“We just have to find our place then. Both of us.” She holds out a hand. “Come back?”

He looks at the hand for a minute, debating, before he smiles and takes it. “Yeah, okay.”

\---

Winter break ends and he’s right back at school. El doesn’t join him, waiting until next year, and Will doesn’t blame her. High school, for all old people talk about it being their best memories, sucks. He’s gone to science club a few times, and every time he’s there Robert looks at him like he hung the moon.

It’s _awful_.

Will can’t handle four years of this, let alone another semester. They’ve been placed in a reading group together, _Catcher in the Rye_, and Will has become very distracted every single time they do group work. His stomach does flip flops and he feels like he smiles way too much even though he’s doing his best to keep it all shoved inside.

It makes him feel elated and disgusting all at the same time.

Home is fine, not like it ever wasn’t.

“You seem happier,” mom says one night when it’s just the two of them doing the dishes. “Are you starting to like it here?”

“Kind of,” because while he isn’t, he doesn’t want to let his mom down over something like this.

“Have you made any friends yet? You j=haven’t really talked about anyone.”

“There’s this guy Rob in my English class that’s kind of cool. He’s nice and in science club.”

“Well don’t be afraid to invite him over some time. He’s always welcome.”

“Sure, mom,” he says, not telling her that Rob will absolutely never come over to their house because if he does he’ll have to explain some things that he just doesn’t want to.

El is… El seems tired, and he knows it’s because she’s been trying so hard recently to get her powers back. They’re they, everyone knows they have to be, but they’re just not working.

They get the day off school and it’s just Will and Eleven at home, doing nothing in the space of the house. El’s staring at things, holding her hand out to move things far away, but they’re not even rattling anymore. There’s no movement whatsoever.

He watches her stare at the empty Coke can in front of her, fists clenched tight, but nothing happens. He should finish up this analysis on the last few chapter of _Catcher in the Rye, _but he can’t just let her sit there.

“Hey,” he says, and she jumps, looking at him. “You, uh, I know you’ve probably already done it, but are you visualizing it?”

“Visualizing it,” she says, glancing back at the can. “I can see what I used to do.”

“Not memory,” he tells her. “That just makes you want it too bad. You have to look at the thing right in front of you and think about _it_ crushing. Not Coke cans of the past, Coke cans of now. Look at what it is, how it’s shaped. What letters are you looking at right now? The image has to be the thing that’s happening right now. You can see it crushing in your brain.”

She looks at him and nods, turning back to the can. Closing her eyes, Eleven takes a deep breath before reopening them, staring at the can. It sits still for a while until it rattles, but El doesn’t stop, she keeps staring right at it, and then a dent punches into the side. It’s not big, but it’s enough, and both of them stare shocked at the can on the table.

“It… it worked.”

“It kinda worked!” he says, smiling. “You did it!”

She wipes at her nose and finds just the littlest bit of blood coming out and stares at it like it’s the entire world.

“Don’t push it,” Will says. “Baby steps. If you try to do too much you’ll wear it out again.”

She nods but looks like she wants to ignore him. She doesn’t, sitting back and looking at the can in awe. A little while later she tries it again and it takes the same amount of time, that stressful few seconds where neither of them know if it’ll work before it rattles and another dent pushes into the opposite side.

“What do you visualize?” she asks him after. “You talk about it like you know.”

“I mean obviously not magic powers,” he jokes. She laughs and he feels better for it. “Just… just stuff sometimes. Reminds me where I am, what time I’m in. I think about the things around me, count down how many blue things are in the room, what the place smells like, what noises there are. Build a picture in my head that I can refer to of what things are like.”

“That seems good,” she tells him. “It works for more than just one thing.”

“I wasn’t sure,” he says honestly. “I really didn’t know if I was just spouting bullshit or if it would actually help you.”

“It helped.” She says. “You’re good at helping, Will.”

She says it with such conviction, like it’s the most important thing in the world, and his throat feels tight for a good minute or so.

“Thanks,” he chokes out eventually, and she nods, going back to her current book, _The Chronicles of Narnia_. He picks his notebook back up and maps out the storyline of _Catcher in the Rye_, trying to tie down easy plot points and the stuff hidden in them. Rob might have better ideas, but he won’t see him until Monday and their papers are due Tuesday. He can get this finished, even without the help of his reluctant friend.

\---

Will sits very still in the school office, ice pack pressed to his eye, tissue stuffed up his nose. He’s already bled all over the front of his shirt, so the tissue doesn’t really make any difference. It’s his own fault he’s in here, anyway. He knows he’s getting at least a day of suspension, maybe more. But it’s his first offence so they might go easy on him.

It wasn’t even that bad. He’s dealt with bullies before. They’ve just never touched a nerve like this before.

“Will Byers?” The secretary calls, and he stands, rearranging the ice pack. “Principal Bannet will see you now.”

He enters the office, sits down, and listens to the principle tell him what he already knows. That he threw the first punch, that he’s lucky no one got seriously hurt, that words shouldn’t affect him this much, what was he thinking?”

“One day of suspension,” he’s told, and then they ask who he wants them to call to pick him up because that day is really a day and half, counting today. The choice is easy.

“Oh my god,” Jonathan says when he sees him. “What happened?”

“Your brother started a fight with three boys in the sophomore class,” the principal tells Jonathan, drawing his attention away.

“What?” he asks, confused and upset. “No, Will doesn’t start fights. What were they doing?”

“Some harmless teasing,” Principal Bannet says, and Jonathan goes from upset to bristling in a second.

“What the hell kind of—”

“I threw the first punch,” he says, cutting him off. “It’s my fault. Can we leave?”

It’s his fault. It’s his fault. They weren’t wrong. Jonathan looks at him, ready to defend him to the end, but when he looks in his eyes his shoulders slump.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The car ride is quiet, and after a few moments, Will realizes they’re not going home. He turns to ask but Jonathan beats him to it.

“I figured you didn’t want to talk about it at home,” he tells him, glancing at him while driving.

“The gas—”

“Doesn’t matter. I worked overtime last week, so we’re fine on money.”

He settles back down, holding the melting icepack in his hands, face too cold to keep icing.

“Come on Will, I know you don’t want to tell mom, so at least tell me.”

“They were right,” he says quietly. “I was my fault. Not just the punching.”

“You know that’s not true. Whatever those assholes said isn’t true, and it isn’t your fault.”

“It is true though,” he says, and his words are clipped. “Every fucking word.”

He stares straight ahead, but he sees Jonathan look at him in his peripheral. The silence stretches, grows thick, and eventually Jonathan pulls into a park and stops the car.

“Will,” Jonathan says, but it’s quiet enough that the thickness isn’t cut down any. “Talk to me. You can tell me anything, and I mean that. I love you, whatever it is.”

His whole body is buzzing, like a guitar string pulled too tight, and his lips press together thin. He won’t move his eyes, staring straight out the windshield at the desolate playground ahead of him.

“The boy in my English class,” he says finally. “The first day we talked was during Romeo and Juliet. He smiled at me when we were reading lines and I—”

He cuts himself off, clenching his teeth and closing his eyes before continuing. “I _liked_ it. My stomach got all flip floppy like they say it’s supposed to when you look at a girl you like but he’s Robert. And I’m me. And I didn’t even stop myself, I actually tried to become his friend and he let me. We go to science club sometimes. We eat lunch together. And I thought I was better at not showing it but I guess I was wrong.”

He reopens his eyes and resolutely does not look at Jonathan, who’s looking right at him. “One of the guys is in science club occasionally, but I think it was lunch that did it, because he cornered me after it with his friends and they said, they called me a queer and a faggot and they’re right. They’re right and they know it and I know it and now you know it.”

The car is silent, and Will waits for the other shoe to drop. His throat’s locked up now that he’s done, eyes filling with water and he doesn’t blink because then he’ll start actually crying.

“They weren’t right,” Jonathan says eventually, and Will turns to look at him finally, eyes wide. “They weren’t. You might not like girls, you might be gay, but you’re not a faggot. You’re Will, you’re my brother and I love you. I meant that. This doesn’t matter to me, okay? Whoever you are and whoever you like, you’re still my brother and nothing can change that.”

Will blinks, heaves in a breath, and starts sobbing. Jonathan panics, hands flying out before pulling him into a hug, and that makes Will cry even harder. He wraps his arms around his brother and cries into his shoulder because he feels so light, so incredibly loved that it hurts.

“Is this okay?” Jonathan asks, like this isn’t the best worst feeling he’s had in months.

“It’s super okay,” he tells him, voice waterlogged. It is okay, it’s very very very okay.

“Do you want to get ice cream?” Jonathan asks after he’s done crying all over him.

“It’s February,” he says, wiping at his nose and eyes, careful of the bruising.

“So what?” he says. “Someplace has to be open for ice cream for the people out there who like cold foods in the cold.”

“Sure, let’s get ice cream.” It gives him more time to think of what he’s going to tell mom about his face.

\---

That night, he wakes up from a nightmare clutching his blanket around himself as he sits up. The room is cold, unnaturally so. He can’t feel any warmth around him, _just how he likes it_, his brain helpfully supplies. He turns a shaky hand to turn on the lamp, but it doesn’t come on. He flicks it multiple times, but there’s no light, nothing.

It’s cold and it’s dark and as he looks around the room with quickening breaths the shadows start to move, twisting all around him on the walls and the floor. His body aches and he can see his breath, can feel the harsh particles in the air, feels his brain step to the backburner for something, someone else, and he can’t handle it.

Will screams.

The door slams open and he wails, covering his eyes with chilled hands and curling into his knees. He’s been found, he’s done for, this is the end, this is it this is it this is it.

“Sweetie,” his mom says to him, voice shaking, touching his shoulders gently. “Sweetie it’s mom.”

“The power’s out,” Jonathan says from the doorway. The bed dips as someone sits on the edge of it.

“No, no, no no no,” he whispers into his knees, because this is some kind of trick, like maybe he can’t get him unless he looks right at him.

“What do you hear?” Eleven asks from the foot of the bed. “What do you smell?”

He focuses, doesn’t uncover his eyes. “I— I hear the wind outside. And J-Jonathan shifting. And the bed’s creaking. I’m… I’m breathing really fast, and it smells like—”

He cuts himself off, because he was about to say home, but that can’t be true because it still doesn’t feel like home, but maybe…

Will lifts his head and finds the three of them looking at him. His mom’s hand cups his face when his head raises, eyes sad. El looks like she’s focusing on something really hard and then— then the lamp by his bed flickers to life, granting the room a dull sort of light for a minute or two, and he stares at her in all her bloody nosed glory.

“Thanks,” he tells her, and she just nods.

“Sweetheart, are you back with us?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” he tells mom, and she smiles at him, a tight lipped thing.

“Good,” she says. “Jonathan thinks the power went out, which is why the lights and the heat aren’t working. It should come back by morning, but I can get you some more blankets if you want.”

“That, um, that’d be nice.”

She gives him a pat on the cheek and stands, going to grabs some blankets. Eleven reaches out a hand and he takes it and then the light goes out again.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

“It’s okay.”

Jonathan sits on the bed next to Eleven and mom comes back with two heavy blankets, draping them overtop him. It heats him up some, his little pocket of body heat inside the blankets.

“Do you want us to stay?” mom asks him, and he shakes his head.

“I’m okay now. Just the cold and the dark was bad for a minute.”

“Okay,” she says, kissing him on the forehead and turning. “Call me if you need anything.”

Jonathan goes too, squeezing Will’s shoulder before he does so and turning down the hall into his own room.

Eleven stays a little longer, still squeezing his hand, eventually wiping the blood from her nose. She’d seen his black eye and bloody nose earlier and gotten worried, but he’d given her the same bully excuse he’d given mom. He might tell her soon, what the real reason was, but not tonight, not yet.

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I know. I want to be here for a little bit.”

Will hums and doesn’t pull his hand away. They stay like that for a little while longer, sitting in the dark together, until Eleven moves first, scooting herself up the bed to sit right beside him, pulling at the blanket.

“What are you doing?”

“Tired. It’s warmer with two people,” she says like her wanting to sleep in the same bed as him would ever be obvious. “Get some more sleep.”

He freezes for a minute, but then he gives in, because it is warmer with two people, and he is very tired. He unwraps the blankets from himself and drapes them overtop both of them and the bed and lays back don. El lays down too, curled towards the wall.

“Good night Will,” she says.

“Good night El.”

It’s not perfect, but it something. And he feels pleasantly warm, comfortably next to somebody, and sleep comes a little bit easier.

He doesn’t have another nightmare that night.

**Author's Note:**

> hi i love will byers with my whole heart and this is the first stranger things fic ive written  
duffer brothers treat will better challenge  
im so excited for whenever season 4 comes out, the split up, the drama, the growing family, excellent  
please comment if you enjoyed!


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